Going a goal down has made things a lot harder for us than they should have been

Michael Carrick

United have limped to the top of the ­table this season, but find themselves in the familiar position of looking down on their rivals.

However, it has been far from a masterclass from Sir Alex Ferguson’s men, with United making life difficult for themselves.

They have gone behind in 13 games this ­season to cause their boss a serious headache.

Despite United’s powers of recovery being stronger than ever, Fergie admits he has an ­issue to address and even suggested the ­problem has given him sleepless nights.

They have kept just three clean sheets in the Premier League this season and have had to rely on Robin van Persie to ride to their rescue.

With his goals and assists United are currently top of the pile, while without them they would have been down in 13th.

United’s season was summed up by their 1-0 home win over West Ham on Wednesday night, when the hosts took just 33 seconds to go ahead through Van Persie but spent the rest of the game battling to hang on to their lead.

Fergie is on a mission to exact revenge on ­neighbours City and turn United into champions again. But Carrick admits a record 20th league crown might be out of their reach unless they ­rediscover their killer instinct.

The England midfielder said: “The West Ham win was by far not a classic. Obviously we weren’t at our best and the flowing football that you want to play and the chances that you want to create didn’t quite happen.

“We got a clean sheet, which was quite pleasing, and I thought we defended well.

“They had a couple of opportunities and when they put balls into the box like they did, those can fall to anybody.

“But overall I thought we defended well – we didn’t play as well as we could have but we won the game.

“A clean sheet is the biggest plus that we can take from it. They pumped a lot of balls into the box, asked questions and made us defend.

“Our two centre-halves were terrific. West Ham had two big guys – as Carroll goes off, Carlton Cole comes on – and it can be tough.

“But we got the clean sheet. It is something to build on because the performance needs to be ­better. A second goal would’ve put us in a much better position going into the final few minutes, but, in the end, we held on and we’re still in a good position at the top of the league.

“We are quite satisfied, but we had a spell about a year or two ago when we were starting games really well and killing teams off really early. We want to get back to that because Old Trafford is a difficult place to play when you go a goal down.

“We want to make it that way because going a goal down has made things a lot harder for us than they should have been.”

Jonny Evans admits United are nowhere near the top of their game and need to stop making life difficult for themselves. The Northern Ireland ­defender said: “We didn’t play well. The game was a bit slow and laboured.

“It was fortunate that we got the goal early doors, but we didn’t really kick on from that. It was a bit nervy towards the end.

“The clean sheet is good for the confidence, even if we didn’t play in the normal United way.

“I was thinking at the time, ‘This is great, we’ve got a goal early doors and we can score a lot here’, because everybody is looking at the goal ­difference after what happened last season.

“We all know we didn’t play to our usual standards. We probably were a bit more cautious going forward and holding our positions a bit more.

“It’s up to us to find the right balance and decide when it’s the right time to go forward and the right time to hold your position and defend.